Monday, 17 April 2017

Barn owl

Along with the short-eared owls at Wicken we have been lucky to see a barn owl or two hunting. They are quite obvious as they fly low above the fen with the early morning light catching their white wings. On one of our first visits, before we were aware of one particular owls hunting area, it came out of some trees and flew straight at us before we even knew it was around. The last visit we made a few weeks ago we saw presumably this same owl in the same area, but it flew over the bank of a lode before we had chance to take any photos. However, when we started walking along that lode it popped up from the undergrowth and began to hunt in front of us. We stood for a few minutes as it hovered over a ditch, moving every so often a few feet either way, its eyes never leaving the ground. One failed dive and it rested on a post for a few seconds before trying again. Eventually it went down again, this time stopping out of sight for a while before finally flying off with its prey, disappearing back over the lode. A beautiful 5 minutes with a stunning bird.